“Hey, good news!”

Parrot closed the hood, rounding the truck into the driver’s seat and firing up the engine. The truck purred, no longer making its weird, groaning noise. Parrot rolled down the window, leaning into the passenger side and raising his voice. “We’re good to go home then?”

JT nodded, not even bothering to feign a smile.

Parrot frowned. “Where’s your soda?”

He had told Parrot he’d be heading inside to grab the proffered drink from the omega, Alec. But it hadn’t exactly worked out the way he’d planned. Instead of replying then, he nudged his head toward the gates and where he left his bike idling by the curb. “I’ll follow.”

If Parrot had a comment, he didn’t make it. Rolling up his window, he honked once and the gates opened like magic.

Well. Not like magic. JT grumbled in his head. Glancing at the front door, he imagined Alec heard the car horn and opened the gates in preparation for their exit. He must have been thrilled that JT was leaving; almost as relieved as JT was.

It hadn’t been lost on JT that Alec had acted differently toward him. Sure, the omega hadn’t shoved him away both times they had gotten close to exploring the still-strong current of desire. In fact, he had been quite respondent to JT’s touch. But he hadn’t been as relaxed with JT than he’d been with Parrot.

And that bothered him.

He carried it all the way home, out of the well-to-do suburbs and into the city. Parrot waited by his truck as JT swung his legs from his bike, each foot feeling as if encased by concrete blocks.

Parrot was silent until they stepped into the elevator and he tapped the button for their floor. “So, the fish died, huh?”

JT jerked his head, his reflection on the mirrored lift giving him a near three-sixty of his fierce scowl, puckered black brows and fixed glare. In his mind’s eye, Alec’s face troubled him.

“Thanks for the help with the truck. I’ll drop it off at the garage tomorrow, first thing, and take my bike instead.”

JT grunted, acknowledging Parrot, but not catching all he said.

Sensing his lack of engagement, Parrot said, “Strange coincidence.”

Rousing from staring down his reflection, JT flickered his gaze to his friend and roommate…and his ex-lover. Theirs was a convoluted relationship, one that he should have been concerning himself with now, but for the life of him, he couldn’t stop thinking about Alec. The omega had done something strange to him. Wondrous and annoying, he plagued JT even with miles separating them now, and no reason for their paths to cross again.

The lift door swung open smoothly, spitting out JT and Parrot onto their floor. Parrot had the keys in his hands, so he swung their front door open, JT closing up after them.

“I mean about Alec Edwards.”

“That his name?” JT didn’t pause when Parrot snapped his head around and raised his brows.

“It is,” he said, enunciating carefully. Then he continued, “I got the call to his address last minute, and I was surprised when he answered the door.”

“You remembered him?” JT asked, both irked and fascinated with Parrot’s memory. The beta forgot to clean his room—hell, he sometimes left the toilet unflushed after taking a piss, but he recalled Alec from three years ago at that fateful barbecue.

“Didn’t you?” Parrot countered. But his expression said it all: he knew JT remembered him. Moreover, he had to be aware Alec knew who they were, too.

“Cute kid.” Parrot moved into their small kitchen, raiding the fridge for a cold beer. Popping the lid off, he swigged the bottle, his pleased sigh washing over the tense silence radiating around them.

JT quivered with his irrational annoyance, his movements jerky as he ripped off his jacket and tossed it on their worn sofa. Plopping down in front of the television, he ripped the laces free off his steel-toed work boots—mandatory footwear on the construction site, and freed his toes from the confines of their thick wool socks. Nothing like frostbite on an early winter morning shift.

Grabbing for the remote control, he glimpsed Parrot’s shadow stepping into his peripheral, his beta roomie throwing down on the sofa beside him, his weight sinking in closer when he reached for the gay porn magazine on the table. “Oops,” he said, chuckling. “How did this get out here?”

Lips tightening into a grave line, JT flicked through the channels, finally settling on a re-run of professional wrestling.

“Normally omegas don’t do it for me.” Parrot kicked up his legs, resting them on the coffee table.

When JT gave him a side eye, he found Parrot’s attention on the magazine. He flipped the pages slowly, briefly examining the racy contents. The sights of cocks of various sizes, pubes of different color, tight asses and rock hard abs of porn models stirred the sleeping beast in JT. His cock, thick and thirsting, rested on his thigh, frustrated from not having its fill of what it really wanted—who it needed.

Alec Edwards wasn’t an option though.

And neither was Parrot when he looked up and licked his lips, his nostrils flaring, his eyes charging with lust, and lashes fluttering down. “Alec is cute, yes. But I’ve always been more of an alpha guy.”

As much as the thought of fucking Parrot was appealing, JT shoved off, realizing the longer he lingered, the more he caved to Parrot’s flirting. Fucking his friend and ex-lover would certainly scratch the big, thick itch in his pants, but it would intensify the bad taste in his mouth.

Besides, it didn’t sit with him right to use Parrot like that. Screw the beta, by pounding his ass with his pulsing cock, all while thinking about a certain dark-haired omega.

Fuck. What the hell was wrong with him?

“Where are you going?” Parrot didn’t impede JT, but he called out to him. “Hey, I was joking. We don’t have to fuck. I just thought…” he trailed off as JT entered his bedroom and shut the door after him. Twisting the lock, not trusting Parrot to sneak in and try to break his resolve, JT crossed the room to slide open his balcony door and step out, to douse his hot, tensely-wired body with the cool night breeze.

Sure enough, Parrot knocked on the door, calling out to JT. His words were muffled, but he imagined Parrot hoped to lure him to open his room and his bed to him. That wasn’t going to happen.

Soon the rattling at his door quieted, and the world was silent once more. Pittsburgh twinkled up at him, mocking JT, wondering how he’d gotten up so high—a man like him, a boy who’d once crawled its streets, looking for shelter, stealing to keep from starving, and fighting every day and dreading every cold night…

JT sneered, ripping his hands off the cool railing, he turned back to his room, slamming the sliding door closed. When Parrot didn’t run over to inspect the noise, he tugged off his shirt and shrugged out of his jeans, dropping to the edge of his bed in his briefs. Peeling them down, his cock bobbing out, finally freed from its cottony cage, JT grasped himself and pumped.

Slow at first, his lower abs tightening, his fist growing slick from the copious pre-cum dribbling out of his slit freely. His glans glistened, red and swollen with the need to release, his ass cheeks squeezing as he fisted himself faster. Stroking his cock and reaching down to cup and grasp his balls, milk them of all his warm cum, he pumped his way to a quick orgasm.

With a low, long groan pushed past his clenched teeth, he shot his seed out in a succession of creamy white arcs, losing count at four, emptying out his balls completely it felt like. Alec’s face popped into his head at just that moment, the image of him between the alpha’s legs, nursing his cock, catching all of his spunk and swallowing like a pro. That was enough for JT to remain hard even after he dried his tank.

“Fuck.” JT closed his eyes, shuddering as he thumbed his cockhead, prolonging the euphoria of the orgasm. Slapping his cock lightly, he watched the veiny pole bounce, stiff as ever. “Fuck,” he grumbled again.

Sliding his underwear off, he crawled under his bedsheets, staring up at the ceiling, propping his arms under his head. Counting the dark wood planks above, JT was surprised he found reprieve from his dirty thoughts in sleep.

Jolting out of bed to the red-gold light of dawn, JT kicked out of his cover and discovered the trail of clothes he’d discarded last night in his hurry to relieve his hard-on. Too bad it continued to stare him in the face, thick and persistent. The base had swollen with his desire, his mind veering back right where it was last night, to little Alec Edwards.

“Can’t keep thinking about him,” JT mumbled to himself. He had to stop.

Grabbing his towel, he secured it about his waist and strode out of his room, recalling how he’d locked the door to keep Parrot from seducing him.

On the way to the bathroom, JT noted Parrot’s room was empty. A hasty search of the flat revealed his roommate was gone. It was unusual to see the beta up and about so early. Working as a senior representative at a home security company, Parrot did his typical nine-to-five run.

Shaking off the niggling worry settling into his stomach, and forgetting most of it as the sight of the mess Parrot left in his wake on the coffee table, the television on but muted, JT rolled his eyes and swiveled, doubling back to do what he intended in the first place: take a long, cold shower and cool his morning wood.

He had stepped out of the bathroom, the cold water not doing its trick so much as giving in and jacking off as quickly as possible, JT paused on his way back to his bedroom. The doorbell trilled again.

Frowning, he slipped into his room, tugged on a shirt and jeans and answered the doorbell, the caller remaining persistent the whole time.

“Yeah?” JT looked down at the slim woman and then glimpsed the two muscled beta males on either side of her.

She hugged her wool coat closer, her gaze tracking over his body, her straight, white teeth flashing, her cotton candy pink lips lifting into a mock smile. She flipped her long dark blond mane, her blue eyes snapping back to confront his stare.

“What?” JT snapped, a little testy by this strange party cutting into his time. Work wasn’t going to do itself, and the bills to this fancy condo kept him on his toes.

She smiled wider if possible, her cheeks dimpling deeply. “I’m here to see Mr. Wren Forrester.”

“He isn’t here.” JT took a long hard look at the two silent men in sharp black business suits. Grasping the door, he prepared to slam it shut on these goons and this smile-crazed lady. “And who’s looking for him?”

The petite woman not to be mistaken for anything than what she was, an alpha female, leaned in closely and even reached out, her long, artificial pink nails scratching lightly down the door. “A friend.”

Not liking how she said friend, JT opened the door wider. “Does this friend have a name?”

She laughed now, a tinkling sound that tensed him up. And he practically froze into stone when she recovered her smiling calm, and said, “Not one you need to know. Just tell him this friend is looking for her money. All thirty thousand dollars, and interest is accruing every minute he wastes my time.”

JT didn’t know how long he stood there. But by the time he crawled out of his head, the corridor was cleared of the blonde loan shark and her thugs.